Billion Vegans is a one-stop-shop online marketplace for vegan-only products ranging from food, fashion and cosmetics to home and pet supplies. All sellers and products are thoroughly checked and vegan-certified because we care about animal welfare, our customers’ health, and environmental impact. We want to make vegan shopping convenient, affordable, and fun. Founded by a team of serial Hi-Tech entrepreneurs who also happen to be vegan, we believe that doing good is good business.

Alon Hochberg

Co-founder & CEO

A serial entrepreneur and investor, founded 5 companies (2 were acquired) and a VC fund.

Why you may want to invest

1

A rare business opportunity - an untapped market of 20 million vegans in the US, growing by 500% since 2014.

2

An experienced team - an extensive track record of turning ideas into successful businesses.

Vegan core values - we donate 10% of all profits to vegan organizations.

Our Ambition

The vegan community is growing, but the consumer experience is lagging, resulting in a huge underserved market, ripe for change. Supported by the growing awareness of cruelty-free, healthy and sustainable products, Billion Vegans has the potential to become an e-commerce leader. Being at the intersection between e-commerce and the vegan community, we aim to be the largest marketplace for vegans in the US and the global market, becoming the 'Amazon for vegans'.

Why I Like Billion Vegans

I invest in companies based on two main factors: team and market opportunity. The market opportunity for Billion Vegans is huge - practically a blue ocean, but it’s all about the team’s ability to execute. The team must be passionate, knowledgeable, trustworthy, and most of all, resilient. Billion Vegans’ team has all these and a vast experience and successful track record in execution. I’m sure they will succeed.

I know the founders for many years and would have invested in anything they do. Moreover, I’m a vegetarian for many years and now on path of becoming a vegan. Billion Vegans provides a great solution to a major problem and an untapped market which is rapidly growing.

Get an overview of vegan statistics from around the world. See why so many people are going vegan and eating plant-based - from athletes to celebrities to everyday people. The rise of plant-based diets is here to stay. Diets that limit or exclude meat, dairy products, and eggs used to be on the fringe and were seen as fads.

The results from this year are a good insight into the future consumer trends and while convenience will continue to be key for consumers next year and beyond, we know that they are increasingly looking for more diverse, healthy, gluten free and plant based Vegan options.

The astronomical rise was reported in the Top Trends in Prepared Foods in 2017 report, compiled by market research group Global Data. It showed that six per cent of people in the US are now vegan versus just one percent three years ago.

June 30, 2017
@ vegantradejournal.com

06

30

2017

The Largest Online Vegan Marketplace

Being vegan is more than just a dietary choice, it's a lifestyle change. Over 20 million consumers in the US are vegans, growing from 1% to 6% in just four years. But it’s no easy feat being a vegan shopper when you have to scour the web for hours, searching for vegan products, read the fine print to verify ingredients, then contact the sellers for more information only to discover that the product isn’t really vegan.

That’s why we started Billion Vegans. Founded by vegans, we’re a one-stop-shop online vegan marketplace with vegan certified products. We do the research and the authentication, so our customers don't have to.

Billion Vegans on desktop and mobile.

4,500 Products and Growing Fast

Attracting sellers to a new platform is challenging but in less than a year we've managed to partner with established brands like Clif, Silk, Annie's Naturals and more. We host over 200 sellers offering more than 4,500 products, ranging across all categories, including grocery, fashion, cosmetics, home supplies, and more. Unlike most of our competitors, we rigorously certify our sellers and products to ensure that they are indeed vegan so that our customers can have a better, more convenient, shopping experience.

Popular brands on our site.

Competitors

Our best-known and significant competitor is Amazon. They have only 5,000 vegan products but aren’t equipped to thoroughly certify that their products are actually vegan. In fact, while onboarding products we discovered that many “vegan” products that are sold on Amazon aren’t actually vegan.

Competitive landscape.

Our Progress So Far

We started about a year ago with building the platform and a few months later we began onboarding sellers and products. About three months ago we reached the inventory critical mass and started experimenting with low budget marketing campaigns to optimize our platform and validate our business model. Currently, we're spending about $1,000 on marketing and having sales of about $2,500 - that's a 250% return on marketing investment. Because there is no market cap and assuming the ratio stays the same, if we spent $100K on marketing, we would have seen $250K in sales. moreover, the high retention and further marketing optimization may radically improve this ratio.

With this raise, if we hit our minimum goal of $100K, about 70% of your investment will go to marketing, 25% to operations and 5% to Wefunder fees. If we hit our maximum goal of $1,070,000, 50% of your investment will go to marketing, 45% to operations and 5% to Wefunder fees.

All our systems are ready for a massive scale-up. Your investment will help us get there.

Jul 2017

Began building the marketplace

Nov 2017

Soft lauch and started onboarding sellers

Jan 2018

Raised a pre seed round of $300,000

May 2018

Onboarded 4,500 products from 200 sellers

Jun 2018

Initial marketing campaigns

Sept 2018

Wefunder campaign

Q4 2019

Start raising for a Series A

Help Us Build a Better Marketplace

Dear Investors,

I’d like to thank you for considering Billion Vegans as an investment. I’ve been in the startup game for quite some time, both as an entrepreneur and as an investor, and what I learned over the years is that choosing a good investment, while must be backed by a solid business opportunity, must start from passion, from the heart. If these two - passion and a growing market - sit well together, there just might be a chance of winning. This is how I feel about Billion Vegans, and I hope I can convince you to feel what I feel, and see what I see.

My first and true passion in life is my six kids, two of which are rescue dogs, whom I love very much. Two years ago, quite by mistake, I ran into a video about the dog-eating festival in China. It didn’t take me very long to turn vegan. As a very rational person, an engineer at heart, I’ve done my research, and I learned about the major health and environmental aspects of the meat industry, far beyond animal welfare. After changing my life, I decided to take my passion for veganism and use it to create something bigger. Billion Vegans was born out of my belief that within 20 years, most of the world could and will be vegan, and I am happy that I am devoting my life to making that happen. Even more so, I feel so lucky that I can combine my passion for veganism and my ability and experience to developing new ventures.

We started Billion Vegans out of personal experience. To maintain a vegan lifestyle I had to spend hours browsing the web, searching for products, reading the fine print, sometimes needing to reach out to the sellers for further information, tracking orders from multiple sites, often contacting customer service, and sometimes getting products that weren’t actually vegan. The availability, variety, pricing, and quality fell short, compared to my shopping experience before becoming vegan. Being a vegan consumer isn’t easy and we decided to change it. We build Billion Vegans as we want it to be for ourselves as consumers.

And so far, it seems that we are on the right track. We’re seeing that the need is real, shared by many and that the solution fits the need. The community embraces us. The stats are staggering - 6 out 7 people who try to be vegan, revert. We aim to change it, making it easier, affordable and fun, for everyone.

To summarize: if you are vegan - it’s an opportunity to impact your own life and the world, and if you are not vegan (yet) - I hope we convinced you that Billion Vegans is a great investment.

Interview

Expand all

WF: What is Billion Vegans?

It’s a one-stop-shop online vegan marketplace where you can get all the vegan products you want in one place.

WF: How did the idea for Billion Vegans come about?

About two years ago, I became vegan and I had to change everything from food, through clothing and home supplies, all the way to our dogs’ food. I was living in Israel, which is considered a vegan heaven, but it’s still was very challenging, tedious and agonizing process.

There are hundreds of online stores that sell vegan products but that was challenging as well. I had to go from one store to another, read the fine print to verify that the products are actually vegan and that the seller could be trusted. Then I had to make the purchases, track the shipments, and in some cases, contact customer support. It was very time consuming and frustrating. What I needed was a place I could go to every few days to buy everything I needed, from food to household products to shoes. The answer was a one-stop-shop where I can trust everything I buy.

As an entrepreneur, I understood the severity of the problem, It’s impact on the vegan world and the size of the business opportunity, and decided to do it myself.

WF: What were your entrepreneurial ventures before this?

I'm what you call a serial entrepreneur. I have started five companies before. Three of them were enterprise software companies, one was an internet company, and the other was a medical device company. I sold two of them, and then I started the venture fund that specializes in advertising technologies and invested in 8 companies.

Then, due to some personal circumstances, I took about two years off, and came back and started a medical cannabis research venture in Colorado. Then, two years ago, I became vegan, my life took a turn, and now I'm devoting my life to promoting veganism.

My strongest suit is forming a vision and executes upon it intensively until it becomes a reality.

WF: What is your vision for the growth of the company?

Our intention is to offer most vegan products available and to be the largest marketplace in the US for vegans, and then to expand into other countries. The vegan community will continue to grow, and so will our marketplace. Our vision is to be at the intersection between e-commerce and the vegan community, promoting vegan brands, small and large, representing the community’s needs, and promoting the vegan lifestyle.

WF: What are your best qualities as a company?

We share the same values and passion with our customers, sellers, and employees. It makes the operation much more streamlined and frictionless. For example, both sellers and customers are much more tolerant to our fuck-up;) In addition, we are part of the community, represent the needs and challenges of both our customers and sellers, and could reach a very high level of trust and loyalty.

WF: How do values play into your business?

We care about the same things as our customers. We review every product and seller to be able to provide additional information about the products (organic, non-GMO, includes palm-oil, etc.) and sellers (are they vegan, do they sell only vegan products, etc.). That’s important for vegans. We also donate 10% of our profits to vegan organizations that promote veganism.

WF: Does the vegan community have any special characteristics that you can utilize for scaling your business?

The vegan community is a unique one. Its members are conscious about animal welfare, health and/or environment. They made personal sacrifices and are highly committed. However, we are still a minority and the challenges we are facing are enormous. We must join forces in making our own lives and the world better, and it’s within our reach. Billion Vegans is highly committed to partnerships across the whole ecosystem, with customers, sellers, distributors and service providers. We share the same values, the same challenges, and the same dreams. Working together, coordinating efforts and sharing resources, we will conquer. It’s a major challenge and a huge business in its infancy, with a place for everybody. Currently, we established great partnerships with numerous NGOs and companies that promote veganism and it proves to be mutually beneficial.

WF: How do you plan to spend the money you raise?

Mostly on marketing. We're going to continue with onboarding sellers and products through the rigorous vegan-certification process and with improving the product, but mostly it's going to go to marketing in all venues, focusing on branding and sales.

WF: What are the strengths of your team and would you add anyone?

We are all entrepreneurs with vast experience in turning a vision into a reality (aka execution), each in his/her domain. That means that we have the commitment, perseverance, and flexibility that is a must in the rollercoaster-like journey of an early stage startup. We have a very strong product and technology teams, both with relevant experience in e-commerce. That is how we were able to be so fast and effective in building the marketplace and the inventory. However, when it comes to marketing, we weren’t able to recruit the people we need with our current resources, and this will be our first hire.

WF: How did you start the company and what does the progress look like?

It started a year ago. We spent a few months in building the platform and eight months ago, we started building the inventory, onboarding sellers and products. Usually, this phase takes much longer, but most of the sellers are vegan as well and were very happy to come on board.

About three months ago, we started low-budget marketing campaigns intending to explore various marketing methodologies and optimize the platform. We were surprised to see how engaging and viral the community became in such a short time. The retention is more than 17% and the conversion rate is about 1.5%. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is currently about $22 but is expected to drop below $10. The Average Order Value (AOV) is about $42 and expected to grow to at least $50. This is with only preliminary and basic optimization and marketing, and without the accumulated impact of the high retention.

Currently, all systems have been thoroughly checked and are ready for a massive scale-up. Now we market.

WF: How big is the need for stores that cater to vegans?

Over the last four years, the number of vegans has grown by 600% from 1% of the population to 6%. There are currently around 20 million vegans in the States and the number keeps growing rapidly. Many more are trying to be vegan, believe in the vegan ethics, or are interested in the health aspects of veganism, but because it's so hard to be vegan, they have not been able to commit to it.

WF: What sellers are there in this market?

There are only a few competitors. One which started 20 years ago, hasn't changed much since and has only 1,500 products. A couple others are health or organic driven and offer mainly food and vitamins. And there is Amazon, the beast in the industry. However, they have only about 5,000 vegan products and are not equipped to thoroughly certify that the products are vegan. Indeed, many of the products they are offering as ‘vegan’ were checked by us and found to be not vegan. Moreover, as we sometimes use Amazon for shipments, some customers told us that they don’t want to get anything from Amazon and are willing to pay more but get it from us. According to surveys we’ve conducted among potential customers about the main reason to purchase on a specific online store - 21% answered that it’s that all products are vegan and 16% that it's vegan certified by a trustworthy organization. The result is that 37% will not buy on Amazon, even if the selection and prices are the same.

WF: How do you measure success?

Beyond revenues and profits, we will measure our success by contribution to the improvement in animal welfare, in our customers' health and in the environment. A large and dominant marketplace could make a major impact on these and serve as a busienss engine behind many suppporting initiatives.

WF: Can you talk about revenue numbers since you started?

We just started marketing three months ago. We are currently spending about $1,000 on marketing, and the Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) is about $2,500. Until now, we couldn't afford a larger marketing budget. Still, we already have hundreds of customers, and although it's not a large number, the KPIs are above industry standard and constantly improving. Soon after the funding round, we will significantly increase the marketing budget, while continue on improving the KPI’s, targeting to reach our 12 months benchmarks which will position us in the lead and pave our way to a large A-round.

WF: What are your customer acquisition costs and the lifetime value?

Currently, the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is $22. It dropped rapidly, and we're quite sure that it's going to drop to about $10 through marketing and social media, establishing more brand awareness and credibility. We can't measure the lifetime value yet as we can't extrapolate on such a short period. However, the retention, which could provide a good indication on the lifetime value (LTV), is very high. It's about 17% within a very short time. For the business plan, as a conservative guesstimation, we assume 6 purchases of $50 and a commission of 25%, which results in an LTV of $75.

WF: When you think about expanding this over the next year or five years, what is it going to take to become a massive business?

The marketplace “machine” already works fairly well and will continue to improve over time. It all comes to our marketing budget. We will use the current funding round to reach a significant traction while validating our scalability and KPIs. Then we will have a large funding round that will take us all the way to profitability, and to a leading position in the market.

WF: Can you tell me the state of the vegan market right now? How has it been growing and how do you see it evolving over the next few years?

The vegan market has been changing dramatically over the last few years. From a fanatic minority, it became a mainstream lifestyle. It has grown by 500% since 2014, from 1% of the population to 6%. The reasons range from a greater awareness of its animal welfare, health, and environmental impact all the way to an alignment with the millennials' mindset. In combination with the growth of e-commerce, the vegan online shopping represents a market of $30 billion, highly diversified and underserved.

The resources that are currently invested in meat/dairy/eggs plant-based replacements are growing rapidly as well. Soon, the availability, variety, and quality of these products will be sufficient. Once their prices drop below the prices of the products they are replacing, we will reach a tipping point in which the economic aspect will switch most of the population into veganism - not because of the ethics, health or ecology aspects, but because of the costs.

I truly believe that within 20 years, the world is going to be practically vegan.

WF: What questions do investors usually ask you?

Many questions revolved around Amazon, but we believe we have a good answer...

Most people are aware that the vegan community is growing rapidly as it becomes mainstream and a trendy lifestyle. However, they aren’t aware of the magnitude of this trend and the fact that it’s the fastest growing community in the world. People that aren’t vegan are asking about the vegan lifestyle as they don’t know how challenging and time-consuming is maintaining it. They are not aware of the severity of the problem and the fact that the market currently is totally underserved.

Another repeating question, which I’ve been asked in every one of my ventures (and I’m asking when I’m investing in a venture;) is: "How come there is nothing like this already?". Well, we don't have a good answer for this. It’s probably a combination of the rare ability to see ahead of the curve, the fact the most relevant companies are busy with their agenda, the corporations’ strategy in regards to internal innovation and most of all - luck.

Ask a Question

Risks

1

The Company may never receive a future equity financing or elect to convert the Securities upon such future financing. In addition, the Company may never undergo a liquidity event such as a sale of the Company or an IPO. If neither the conversion of the Securities nor a liquidity event occurs, the Purchasers could be left holding the Securities in perpetuity. The Securities have numerous transfer restrictions and will likely be highly illiquid, with no secondary market on which to sell them. The Securities are not equity interests, have no ownership rights, have no rights to the Company’s assets or profits and have no voting rights or ability to direct the Company or its actions.

2

Our future success depends on the efforts of a small management team. The loss of services of the members of the management team may have an adverse effect on the company. There can be no assurance that we will be successful in attracting and retaining other personnel we require to successfully grow our business.

3

We face competition from larger retailers (e.g. Amazon) which might require changes in our business model and could cause us to suffer losses.

4

New marketplaces would probably pop up soon and compete with us, some of which might have a solid financial and operational support, and it could have an adverse effect on our business model, revenues and profits.

5

The vegan/plant-based trend could cease growing or even diminish because of scientific research findings of negative impact on health. It would require a radical change in the marketplace and could cause us to suffer losses.

6

Changes in the advertising arena (mainly facebook and google) could cause an increase in the advertising costs, resulting in a higher customer acquisition cost and a drop in profitability.

7

The preferred stock that investors in the SAFE will receive (if converted) has not yet been authorized by the Company.

8

Alon Hochberg, the Company’s founder and CEO owns 100% of the Company's authorized stock. Alon Hochberg is also currently the Company’s sole member of its Board of Directors, and therefore has significant control over the management of the Company and the direction of its policy and affairs. This concentrated control in the Company will limit Investors’ ability to influence Company matters.

9

The Company is early stage and has only just begun generating revenues. Predictions about future revenues and growth cannot be guaranteed.

Other Disclosures

Read the
Form C
filed with the SEC for other important disclosures, like financial statements, Directors, Officers, shareholders with more than 20% of voting rights, and more.

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